Two Plus Two Newer Archives - $100,000 in Six Months Challenge

I know this is very long but I wrote it for myself as much as for the boards. I encourage anyone who wants to read it to post their comments/concerns. If the updates are too much to read I’ll be posting a running tab at the bottom so people can quickly glance and follow my progress.

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$100,000 in Six Months Challenge

It’s official, as of January 15th I’m going to be doing the $100,000 in Six Months Challenge.
As I mentioned in my post a few days ago, the quest I tried and completed this time last year really helped me focus and maintain consistent play over a reasonable amount of time. As I am now out of school and am playing poker for my only source of income while getting my life together, this quest will be much more daunting in both length and money. Six months is a long period of time, and I’ve found it’s easy for anyone to write out a detailed multi-month plan that gets thrown in the mud after five weeks.

So why am I committing myself to such a time demanding quest? It is my hope to become a high school teacher within the next two years, and this task starts this fall in grad school. Right now I live in Derby, CT and have already gotten into both Quinnipiac University and Fairfield University for their teacher certification programs. However, it has also been a dream of mine to live in New York City. In the coming months I will be applying to several NYC graduate schools, along with their alternate route certification (Fellows), and hopefully I will get into one of these programs.

The problem with moving to NYC and going to grad school full time is that it becomes extremely hard to make ends meet while keeping up with studies. After talking to a friend that went to Columbia, we decided that one would need a minimum of $5,000 a month to make ends meet while living a normal lifestyle (which includes living in a decent apartment, going out with friends, etc). Being a poker player I would want to have at least $20,000 saved if I were to live in the city and make poker my only job while going to school.

If this quest doesn’t work out I will make NYC happen another way (i.e getting a real job), but this way would be much better/easier/fun.

If I make $100k on this quest (which would put me at 110k total bankroll) I’m estimating a conservative $30k will go towards taxes. This leaves me with 80k. At this time I would like to have 20k in savings and 20k in bankroll. With this amount of money I’d feel comfortable moving to the city while only playing poker. I came up with 100k by figuring what I’d want, doubling it, and accounting for taxes.

Why double what I’d want? Why not! After all, it is a quest and should go above and beyond ordinary goals. I could use the extra money to cushion my expenses, pay off existing school loans, go play some major tournaments, or even buy some new toys.

Moving on...

In creating this plan I was making some general assumptions about my play over the next six months.
- I will be playing 30,000 hands per month
- I will average 1.5bb/100
- I will be taking out $2,500 per month for living expenses that will NOT be counted in the final 100k goal.
- I will include any rakeback/other bonii into the total $ won.
- I will not be withdrawing more than $2,500 for any given month.
- I will work out at least four times a week

I came up with these assumptions through various truths about my play since I started playing full time in June.

- I have average 50,000 hands per month, but at lower limits such as 2/4 and 3/6 while playing 8-12 games at a time. For this challenge I started at 10/20 and would be playing 4-6 games, on average, at any given time.

- My all time average, over more than 500,000 hands, is about 1.65bb/100. However, most of this total comes from 3/6 and below when it was usually better to play more tables and sacrifice winrate. I will be interested to see how my winrate changes as I move up in limits and reduce tables. Reducing tables over the last few weeks has already shown marked improvement of my game, and I’ve been able to read/post many more hands on this website

- The $2,500 number comes off a budget I have made and lived by for the last few months. It includes everything from rent to toiletries to gym membership. I am very comfortable with this number and do not foresee it as a problem. To control my expenses even further I will be getting to $2,500 by taking out $600 after my Sunday session every week with $700 coming out every forth Sunday.

-Rakeback/bonus money will be an added extra every month, and when adding it into my estimates I will using an ultra-conservative figure as not to rely on this money too much.

- The reason I have been playing low limit poker for the last two years is because I used to have a big problem with making money, getting excited and withdrawing, spending the money, and never moving up. With a proper budget I have controlled this problem but it is crucial for me to maintain discipline and not withdraw more than I have planned.

- Lastly, working out and playing sports have always been a major part of my life. I truly believe that keeping in good health is important in achieving any long term goal. Working out four times a week should not be a hard thing to do, but it is important enough that I felt I should keep track of workouts during this quest.

The Plan

This plan is just a skeleton right now, and until I begin will probably be revised and then revised again.

I will begin at 10/20 with exactly $10,000 on January 15th

Jan 15th-Feb 1st -10/20-
$4,500 in poker
$500 in R/B
-$1,200 for expenses
Bankroll: $13,800

Feb 1st - Feb 14th -10/20-
$4,500 in poker
$500 in R/B
-$1,300 in expenses
Bankroll: $17,500

Feb 15th - Feb 28th -15/30-
$6,750 in poker
$500 in R/B
-1,200 in expenses
Bankroll: 23,250

March 1st - March 31 -15/30-
$13,500 in poker
$1,000 in R/B
-$2,500 in expenses
Bankroll: $35,250

April 1st - April 30th -20/40-
$18,000 at poker
$1,000 in R/B
-$2,500 in expenses
Bankroll: 51,750

May 1st - May 31st -30/60-
$27,000 at poker
$1,000 in R/B
-$2,500
Bankroll: 77,250

June 1st - June 30th
$27,000 at poker
$1,000 in R/B
-$2,500
Bankroll: $102,750

July 1st - July 15th
$13,500 at poker
$500 in R/B
-$1,200
Bankroll: $115,550 (though I will stop after I hit $110 and take a long break)

So yes, I will be making more than 100k during this quest, but I want to have gained 100k after expenses when all is said and done.

Although I have mulitabled lower limits for the majority of my career, I do have some experience playing online at higher limits. I have a friend who has staked me from time to time, and although the deal was pretty terrible it did allow me to gain experience at higher stakes. Without this experience I would not have enough confidence to try this quest. I also spent six weeks last summer in Vegas playing 10/20 - 30/60 limits daily, and was a consistent winner at all levels.

Right now I have enough online data to support my plan up to the 30/60 level. However, I have played 30/60 before and am confident that I am at least break even at the game. I also do not think I could beat it for 1.5bb/100 at this point in my career, but I have four months to improve my play before I’ll be giving it a shot.

Thanks for anyone who has read all of this, and I appreciate everyone’s support.

This plan is not set in stone, and will be constantly re-evaluated, so if anyone has any suggestions feel free to post them. I know that it is a very ambitious plan, but that is the point. I also know that it is impossible to run at a consistent level, and I don’t expect to, but if I can run average/better than average for the first month that will go a long way in my achieving this goal. However, if I start off slow, such as on a 20k hand breakeven streak, then I will be very hard pressed to even come close to the final number.

I will be posting more consistent updates in a blog that I will create in the coming week, along with my once a week update on 2+2. I know there are tons of quests on these boards that stop after a week or two for one reason or another, and I would not have written this up if I didn’t know I’d be able to keep consistent updates for six months. I think what made the original $60k in 60 quests so great is that Schneids and Gonores were able to keep consistent updates even when things weren’t going as well as they should. I plan on doing the same.

Thanks again,

Jon